Editor’s Note: Encyclo has not been regularly updated since August 2014, so information posted here is likely to be out of date and may be no longer accurate. It’s best used as a snapshot of the media landscape at that point in time.

Amazon.com is the largest Internet retailer in the United States and one of the largest retailers of any kind in the world. Founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994, Amazon began as a bookseller but quickly branched out into many other areas.

In 2006, the company launched Amazon Web Services, a suite of cloud-based products used in the operation of websites and web applications. Amazon EC2, which sells computing power, and Amazon S3, which sells web server space, are both popular among news organizations and other companies. Some have expressed concern that Amazon’s success in the space could give it too much power, such as when Amazon bounced WikiLeaks off its servers in late 2010.

In 2011, Amazon released the Kindle Fire, a touch-screen tablet computer that runs on Google’s Android system. The Fire was initially priced at $199 and was launched along with its own web browser, Silk.

The Kindle Store sells subscriptions to a number of leading newspapers and magazines. Several news publishers have criticized Amazon for the size of the cut it takes from Kindle subscription revenue. Unlike Kindle ebooks, Kindle subscriptions are not viewable on other devices with Kindle apps, like the iPhone or iPad. In August 2011, Amazon launched the Kindle Cloud Reader, a browser-based app that allows access to the Kindle store.

A number of news organizations have used the platform to publish ebooks based on their reporting. In January 2011, Amazon launched Kindle Singles, a section of the Kindle Store dedicated to article-length pieces, many of them original journalism and some produced by newsorganizations. A number of startups, including The Atavist and Byliner, aim to produce Kindle Singles or ebooks in similar formats for sale.

BuzzFeed is a news and entertainment website that mixes original reporting, user-generated work, and aggregation. The site is driven by social media as a source for finding what material is likely to become popular, and finding the best online channels on which to distribute it. BuzzFeed was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti, a co-founder…

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